Chapter 57 Old Campus "The one who did the killing wasn't him...!"
Pu Fengchun turned around, and the scissors silently stopped on her carotid artery. Xue Chao knelt on one knee behind her, expressionless: "I didn't do anything to you, did I?"
She no longer showed the panic she had displayed before: "What, are you scared?"
“If you really want to be ‘heartless,’ you shouldn’t have asked that question twice. Do you really want to scare me away?” Xue Chao tapped her back with his other hand, on her heart. The girl staggered. “You haven’t even thought things through yourself, yet you’re scheming against others.”
“I think it works well,” Pu Fengchun retorted. “Are you going to kill me?”
Xue Chao slapped an earring into her hand, stepped back, and clapped his hands casually, as if he had gotten rid of a big problem. He was in a good mood: "I'll settle the score. You saved my life and took the hit for you. The deal is done."
"If you really want to settle things evenly, you shouldn't have entered the shop. The shop is like a safe house, as veteran players know. If you want to plot something, this is the most suitable place—so by entering here, in the eyes of the people who want to kill me, it's as if you're on my side."
"I'm the host, and you're the only player right now. What's wrong with me going into the shop with you?"
“I didn’t choose the last instance randomly,” Pu Fengchun said. “I hid in the instance before their attention turned to me.”
After the enemy targeted Pu Fengchun, her first instance was the "Sailing" instance, which was intended to evade them. Now, in the second instance, with the same host and the same mutual assistance, the most important feature of this instance is its characteristics of "few people" and "1v1"—it's perfect for sneaky tactics. In the eyes of the enemy, her goal this time is to strike first, bribe the rising star host, and conspire to resist.
That's exactly what she thought.
Whether or not he enters the shop is not important; once Xue Chao selects this strange instance, he is forcibly tied to the pirate ship.
Xue Chao: "Why don't I just turn against them? When in Rome, do as the Romans do. I suppose everyone is shameless, so it's not surprising."
"It's no use. I'm being hunted down not because of any grudges, nor because I obtained any treasure, but because I learned a secret."
Xue Chao narrowed his eyes and continued, “Enmity has its cause and effect. If you remove it, it won’t affect me. I can hand over the treasure, but secrets are invisible and intangible. As long as you and I enter the safe house at the same time, whether I know it or not, in the eyes of the enemy, I will be the ‘second person who knows the secret’. I can’t explain it. If you die, I will not only not get rid of trouble, but I will also ‘inherit’ those pursuits and become the second you… Impressive. You were already prepared when you agreed to risk your life for me? Ah… even earlier, when you met my original self, you guessed that I was artificial intelligence.”
"No, I figured it out later. Besides, you didn't try to hide it."
Xue Chao browsed through the merchandise area of the memorial hall, casually picking up a "freeze bubble machine" and tossing it to Pu Fengchun, asking her to pay for it: "Your secret was told to you by your deceased 'elder,' right? His dying words, and then he told you to hide in the dungeon to avoid trouble?"
Pu Fengchun suddenly looked at him, and he smiled slyly: "You should be the one with the 'no expression' right now - do you want me to be your bodyguard? Or to protect your empty shell guild that has hardly any members?"
"You investigated 'wild grass'?"
"It's an investigation into you. Many guilds want to bribe or manipulate me, so it's not hard to gather information under the guise of it. Your guild leader disbanded the guild members a long time ago. He knew he was in trouble and was afraid they would be implicated... But I'm telling you this: he has a grudge against you?"
“He didn’t tell me. When I found the teacher’s body, his internal organs and facial features had already been removed. I found it myself.” Pu Fengchun’s indifferent eyes suddenly shone with a bloodthirstiness that seemed to have nothing to do with her in this life. “...I want you to kill someone for me.”
"To avenge your teacher?"
"yes."
"It's more satisfying to avenge your own family member, isn't it?"
“I know my own limitations,” Pu Fengchun said. “Besides, once the revenge is taken, I will be safe.”
She was ruthless yet not thoroughly ruthless, kind yet unwillingly kind. She was like grass with its roots twisted together, partly hard and partly soft, but neither extreme. People often say that weeds are worthless, but they grow back with the spring breeze. But if weeds are born to be trampled on, isn't it painful to be unable to burn them all?
Xue Chao didn't like to worry about other people's life issues, but for some reason he felt tired for her, as if he had been burned by the fire that was destined to rise in her soul, and inhaled a bit of the scorching smoke.
He smiled but did not reply.
Pu Fengchun knew what he was waiting for, and thought to himself that this man was really shrewd. Sure enough, he continued, "The secret is the whereabouts of a key, in Xibei Mountain... It is said to be related to the final breakthrough."
Final victory. For most players, the retirement ticket is a distant dream, and for the few who have a chance, the final step requires even more caution, as they are determined not to fail at the last hurdle.
Whether it's related to retirement or an alternative way to pass the test, even the slightest hint of it is seen by others as possessing the Holy Grail, a grave sin of "possessing a treasure."
Carrying everyone's thoughts on his person, no wonder his life was in danger.
Pu Fengchun: "Stop staring at me. That's all I know. As for Mount Xibei, it's a boss dungeon located within the Infinite World. It's only opened as a guild dungeon. Guild dungeons are all 'investigation team' dungeons, where guild teams compete. You can think of it as 'exploring a new map.' And the boss that sits in charge of Mount Xibei... that 'most evil god.'"
Xue Chao had been listening lazily, but when he heard "the worst of the evil gods," he twitched his lips as if in pain, which made Pu Fengchun look at him in confusion: "What's wrong?"
"I feel nauseous," he said honestly.
"..."
"You just told me that?"
"You'll kill me if you don't tell me."
"You understand me."
He'd already been outmaneuvered; in his opponents' eyes, he was one of the "only two people in the know." If he couldn't confirm it, he'd be at a huge disadvantage.
"Alright, you're starting to be wary of me now, but you tricked me—take your props away, the audience is about to burst, my popularity has dropped—a guild that can't even be found in the top twenty pages of the rankings has such a magical artifact? I think you guys are quite rich."
The comment section froze when Xue Chao threatened Pu Fengchun, with the signal intermittently changing.
Pu Fengchun: "It was left by the teacher. He used to be a member of the 'Orchestra' and his code name was 'Piano'."
The Pilgrimage Band, the third-ranked guild.
"So the host you're trying to kill is a long-time collaborator with this band? They must be on the list. What's their ranking on the host list?"
"...How did you know you were the host?"
"The host can see the comments section, and the audience is connected. Although there are blocking rules, it's not impossible to find out with a little effort. The host is always more informed than the players in this regard."
Once the other party becomes aware of this period of time spent alone without anyone else knowing, their alliance is further solidified.
The props were taken back, the comments section reloaded, and a barrage of questions appeared asking what happened. Before this, Pu Fengchun had made a "three" gesture, indicating he was third on the host ranking list.
He's just a newcomer, yet he's offended all the big names on various lists; it's really embarrassing for him.
He grumbled inwardly, but his phoenix eyes raised slightly, and he used Pu Fengchun's camera angle to give a nice smile: "The signal was a bit bad just now, sorry to keep you all waiting."
The question marks flooding the comments section turned into "It's good that he's willing to put in the effort for me," and Xue Chao let them speculate and guess as they pleased.
The shop's structural logic remains unchanged; the pawnshop style, with glass separating the inside and outside, simply adapts to the solemn historical atmosphere of the memorial hall.
This time, he came to buy in his real form and discovered that the host could also buy props. Contribution points were equivalent to players' points, and popularity points were equivalent to his points. He glanced at the gray-blue plastic bird that had crawled back into the spring alarm clock, poured a healing potion on his arm, and was completely healed in the blink of an eye. The other props were paid for by the newly formed ally and transferred to the host's [backpack].
Pu Fengchun rarely looked so pained: "You don't have more points than me?"
"I'd risk my life for you, and you're not happy about getting paid?" Xue Chao put his hands behind his head.
"I'm not keeping you as a mistress."
"Pretty much, my face isn't bad for you."
"...Stop being so narcissistic. Let's think about what we'll do if we run into trouble later. We've been in the store for too long."
As if on cue, the noise from outside the door burst in as soon as I stepped down to the first floor. The child's cries were like a sudden burst of suona horn in a musical performance, the sorrow instantly overshadowing all other sounds, making the surrounding crowd and gossip seem like mere background noise.
The street outside the school is different from the one in the previous story. The street width and the style and color of the residential buildings are different. They are completely two streets, but both are the backdrop of the school. At this time, a lot of people have gathered there. Their heads are all different and they are surrounded in the middle of the road. The crying is coming from there. It is blocked and the people cannot be seen.
Blood flowed out from the crowd of onlookers, engulfing the scene and the crowd, like a swamp.
The strong smell of blood made Pu Fengchun frown. Xue Chao had already pushed through the crowd to look inside. According to passersby, a couple had jumped off a building, and the child crying was from that family.
He squeezed to the front and saw a familiar figure. Jiang Ming was older than the previous child, about the same age as Pu Fengchun. He was kneeling beside the corpses and crying. His upper body was folded down and buried deep between the headless corpses of a man and a woman. He was holding one of them in each hand. There were broken briefcases and teapot fragments next to him.
The woman's body had fallen and hit something, her abdomen was ripped open, and her internal organs spilled out onto the ground, covered in blood, like rotten fruit pulp in juice.
Pu Fengchun's pupils constricted sharply as she followed, her small body filled with terror. She looked at the boy as if he were looking at herself. Just then, the boy slowly raised his body, and she became even more terrified, as if trapped in a hallucination, fearing it was her own face. Under her fixed gaze, the head buried among the corpses suddenly turned around—it was a sunflower.
This time, it was Xue Chao who was shocked: "The one who committed the murder wasn't him...!"
"【Pu Fengchun】Holy crap, Jiang Ming didn't leave the instance! Has he been assimilated by the instance??"
"【Pu Fengchun】But he completed the mission!"
"【Pu Fengchun】There are two possibilities. One is that he failed in a place we don't know about and was assimilated into an NPC by the instance. The other is the characteristics of the instance. This instance has been very special from the beginning. Everyone is an alien."
"【Pu Fengchun】Besides the host and the players."
"【Pu Fengchun】Jiang Ming is a player too!"
"【Pu Fengchun】But it's a 1v1 mode. According to the current logic of this episode, the host is only responsible for the protagonist of each unit story. Now it's the second unit, which revolves around 'Pu Fengchun's' campus memories, so Jiang Ming who appears here can be regarded as an NPC."
"【Pu Fengchun】grass, so after players finish their own story arc, they don't leave the instance, but are simply left to fend for themselves? In other words, are all players outside of the current story arc aliens? Won't that drive you crazy?!"
Pu Fengchun forcibly pulled himself out of his memories, no longer looking at the distraught boy and the mangled corpse. He turned his head and saw Xue Chao's eyes filled with a hint of malice: "You know him? He wouldn't happen to be our 'big failure,' would he?"
"He is indeed a problem."
However, Xue Chao guessed that Jiang Ming, the protagonist of the first unit story, had not left the instance, but what he did not guess was: "...there is a third player."
In the distance, behind a window of the art building, a little girl with a red rose head quietly watches the farce unfolding on the street. Rose-red glitter slowly gathers at her fingertips, like molecules being extracted and reconstructed from the surroundings.
She raised her hand.
Xue Chao slammed Pu Fengchun's head down, and a passerby next to him was pierced by the red laser and fell to the ground. He grabbed the girl and crawled back into the crowd. He brought out a bubble machine from the host panel's backpack. A string of bubbles floated up and scattered with the wind. The scenery was captured in the spheres that flowed with rainbow light and was frozen in time, except for Xue Chao.
He scooped up Pu Fengchun and rushed back to the main entrance. Bubbles burst one after another, and the frozen scenery came to life again. The disposable bubble machine shattered and disappeared on the spot. Pu Fengchun was trapped in Xue Chao's arms: "From that angle... the other person is on the third floor. Let's go find him?"
“Find a ghost.” Xue Chao said coldly, “The most urgent thing is to end your segment, otherwise you’ll be a sitting duck, Miss ‘Protagonist’.”
Moreover, he is also the protagonist of his other episodes. What if his episodes have an accident if he dies?
Besides, they have laser cannons, so it's uncertain who will kill whom. Why would they just throw themselves at someone else?
Pu Fengchun was put down and followed Xue Chao through the side door and back into the building. The stairwell was covered with lists and report cards, with names lined up one by one, making it dizzying to read.
He wasn't exactly scared, but the familiar sense of "collapse" made Xue Chao stop thoughtfully: "Is your competition ranking here?"
Pu Fengchun immediately went to find her. In the instrumental music competition, she was third in the entire competition, a bronze medalist. In the dance competition, she was fourth in the team competition. Although she didn't make it into the top three, it was still a very good result for a team of over thirty.
She told Xue Chao to put his mind at ease, but Xue Chao's face darkened. She suppressed her unease and said, "The first class this afternoon is painting. I remember the classroom is on the first floor... Why is it so dark outside?"
Xue Chao turned to the side. Outside the stairwell, the circular corridor on the fourth floor seemed to rise infinitely, like hundreds of floors, with no end in sight. If you got close, you could still see the shape of the corridor, but at the farthest point, even if you tried your best to look into the distance, you couldn't see the lines. It was all piled up together with no top.
The already dim light on each floor went completely dark, with only the endless light emanating from the ceiling. The light diminished with each floor, until the first floor where they were was no different from a night house bathed in moonlight.
"Fengchun, come quickly." A loud voice, filled with laughter, called out as the mother stood by the escalator, disappearing into the shadows, and affectionately beckoned to the girl.
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